Legal issues in the provision of medical abortion.

Abstract

As early medical abortion becomes more widespread in the United States, those who wish to provide it need to understand how existing abortion restrictions apply to this procedure. Although these laws were written with a primary regard for surgical procedures, most will be broadly applicable to the provision of medical abortion as well. In this article we briefly describe common abortion regulations, including physician-only laws, reporting requirements, targeted regulation of abortion providers, "informed consent" laws with mandatory waiting periods, parental involvement requirements, and laws governing treatment of fetal tissue. We discuss the applicability of such requirements to medical abortions and describe how providers of medical abortion can comply. Finally, we address potential legislative and regulatory changes that could help to make medical abortion more widely accessible to women in the United States.